Gerrity'S Bride (27 page)

“Yeah, I see it,” the lawman answered, already urging his mount into a gallop, skirting the rocks and shrubs that dotted the terrain. Within seconds, he was no longer in the lead, as Matt Gerrity overtook him. Bending low over the neck of his stallion, Matt rode with breakneck speed, his lips moving in a silent plea, his only thought the woman who was in peril.

* * *

Emmaline watched as the flames crackled and grew, enveloping the table and crawling up the legs, filling the small cabin with smoke. Fire shot upward, spreading to lick at the low ceiling, and then making its way down the walls.
It’s too late,
she thought in despair. The roof is on fire.

Her eyes closed, and she felt helpless tears slide from her eyes. “Listen, ma’am!” came a shout from the corner, and she inhaled sharply, choking on the smoke that filled the small room. From somewhere on the outer edge of her awareness, she tried to focus on Jackson’s words, but then she heard another shout, and then another. She stilled, listening.

As from a distance, a gunshot resounded, followed by more shouts. Once more a shot split the air, and she heard a commotion that seemed to come from nearby.

“Damned if that don’t sound like the boss!” A grim laugh from the corner broke her concentration, and she inhaled another lungful of smoke, coughing harshly.

“Hang on, missus,” Jackson told her. “I’d swear that’s Matt Gerrity thumpin’ around out there.”

Emmaline’s head was throbbing with pain. Every cough vibrated within her until she sensed that the darkness was closing in once more. “Matt,” she whispered, raising her hands to cover her mouth as much as she could, ducking her head against her chest to escape the smoke that had crept down the wall behind her and was surrounding her body.

“Emmaline!” The door burst open, and two men rushed in, Matt in the forefront, scanning the room. Spotting her body on the cot, he reached her quickly. Then, in two long strides, he was halfway to the door.

“Help me, Gerrity!” called the man from the corner.

“That you, Jackson?”

“I got him, Matt,” Hailey Baines told him, dragging the trussed cowhand outside, just as the flames reached the low ceiling of the cabin.

Matt ran heedlessly, aware only of the need to carry his precious burden away from the scorching heat and soaring flames. His arms tightened about her as he fell to his knees and bent over to peer into her face.

“Em!” he called urgently. “Emmaline, answer me, damn it!” He leaned forward and placed her on the ground, his hands pushing haphazardly at her hair, holding it back from her face. Quickly he ran his fingers over her shoulders and down her arms, finally reaching her hands. Working at the rope that bound her, he rid her of it in seconds, his hands gentle as he touched her swollen flesh.

She coughed again, gagging and choking as the night air flooded her lungs. A groan escaped from between her open lips, and she gasped once more, turning her head to one side as she drew in another breath.

“Emmaline.” The single word was choked within his throat, and he felt the misting of his eyes as he scanned her pinched features. She looked so fragile, he thought, one hand lifting to brush at the smudge that marred her left cheek. Her breast rose and fell as she sucked fresh air into her lungs.

“Em...I almost lost you,” he whispered, damning the blurring of his vision as his eyes filled and overflowed. “Oh, God, Emmaline...” he groaned, leaning over her and lifting her against himself. She was warm and alive, and his heart cried out a silent prayer of thanksgiving to the God he had all but forsaken. Emmaline’s God...who had heard the cry of his soul and given him back the woman he held.

She murmured against his face, her mouth soft as she brushed his cheek. “Matt? It was you? You’re really here?” The words were broken and breathless, but he rejoiced in them.

“I’m here, Em,” he assured her, his mouth pressed against her throat. “I’m here, sweetheart.”

“I like it when you call me that,” she breathed. And then a shiver trembled throughout her body as she curled into his chest.

“Let me put my shirt around you,” he said quickly. “You’re cold, Em.” He placed her on the ground and undid the buttons, stripping it from himself, then wrapped her in the warm cotton, unaware of the cool night air that touched his bare arms. His body was clad in the light undershirt he wore, and her eyes sought him, running with concern over his chest and arms.

“The gunshots— You didn’t—?” she asked, seeking reassurance about his well-being.

“I’m fine,” he told her, rising to his feet. “I’ve got to take care of things. You just lie there and wait. I’ll be back in a few minutes.

The night air was cool, clean, and smelled like every good thing Emmaline had ever imagined. She lay on the hard ground, curled on her side, Matt’s shirt wrapped around her shoulders and back, and closed her eyes. Breathing deeply, she coughed once, and then again. Her wrists hurt where she’d tugged at the knots, chafing her skin, before Matt untied the ropes.

“Hang on, Em, I’ll be right there.” Matt’s voice came from across the clearing, at the edge of a stand of trees. She watched as his form emerged from the shadows. Behind him, a horse with a burden draped across its saddle followed, led by the reins he carried.

“He’s set to go, Sheriff,” Matt called out.

“So is old Jackson here,” Hailey answered, mounted on his horse and trailed by the man who had shared the cabin with Emmaline.

“You all right, Jackson?” Matt asked, leading the horse toward the two riders.

“Yeah, just kinda embarrassed to be caught with my pants down, so to speak. He caught me off guard, boss. I swear I didn’t have a suspicion till he laid me out cold. He told me to go back to the ranch on a cockamamy excuse, and I thought maybe he had a lady friend comin’ out to visit, what with all the quick trips to town he’d been makin’ lately. But I told him no anyways. Next thing I knew, he bushwhacked me.”

“Well, he won’t be causin’ any more trouble for anybody,” the sheriff said soberly. He tugged at the reins, and the horse fell in behind his own. “Can Emmaline make it back all right? Is she doin’ okay?”

“She’ll be fine,” Matt told him gruffly. “Don’t wait on us. We’ll be right behind you.”

Emmaline heard the hoofbeats of the three horses fading as they ran away at a steady pace. Above her, a dark shadow formed, limned by the fire that was still blazing across the clearing.

He was big against the shadows. His fists were clenched at his sides, his feet were spread, and his pants were tight against the muscled length of his legs. Her eyes were nourished by the sight of him. He squatted next to her and reached one hand out to brush the hair from her face, his gentle touch a sharp contrast to the rugged silhouette he presented.

“I’ll take you home, Emmaline,” he said roughly. Reaching for her, he lifted her, rising easily and holding her against his wide chest as he turned to where his horse was tethered.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then, through the veil of tears that would not be denied, despite the rapid blinking of her eyelids, she peered up at him. His face was drawn in harsh lines. He was stern and forbidding in his anger, but she smiled anyway.

He was hers and she loved him, and that was all that mattered.

T
he ride back took longer than he’d planned. He rode easily, not willing to submit Emmaline to any more jostling than necessary. Then there was the matter of his horse carrying a double load, what with Emmaline riding before him. Her head leaned against his shoulder, and her eyes closed—for now. He feared that any moment her eyes would open to search for a trace of her Thoroughbred mare.

Matt gritted his teeth, remembering the moment he’d put his rifle against the proud head of Fancy and pulled the trigger. When he found her, she’d been lying there, blood still pulsing from the wound, soaking into the dry ground. She’d been barely alive as she lay in the crimson pool, with her left hindquarter shattered by the blow of a bullet. The sight had come close to breaking his control, so angry was he at the futile loss of the animal. Not to mention the personal loss to Emmaline.

He hesitated at the crown of the southernmost ridge of the mountains and made a deliberate choice. Although it would take an extra hour of riding, he swung to the east to detour around the area where Emmaline had been thrown from her stricken horse.

She hadn’t even noticed, so weary and headsore was she. Her occasional murmur told him she was awake and aware of his arms about her, but the limpness of her form against him sent a message of its own. Once more she had been hurt, again she had barely escaped grievous injury. The memory of the flames that had come within scant feet of her bound body brought a shudder that racked his spine.

Involuntarily he held her closer, bending his head to bury his face against her curls. She responded, resting her fingers against the back of the leather glove that held the reins. In the faint light of dawn, he looked down at her hand, noting the dark bruises, the scratched fingers, the dried blood on her forearm.

Was it her own? Maybe it had come from the scrape on her cheek, or the abrasion on her forehead where the swelling had begun to subside.

“I should never have gone to town yesterday,” he whispered, almost silently, condemning himself without pity. “Should have stayed close by, kept a better eye on things.”

She stirred against him and squeezed his hand. “No...don’t say that, Matt. It was my fault for not watching Tessie.”

He pulled back on the reins, bringing his horse to a halt, wrapping the leather around the saddle horn. His callused hands lifted her from the saddle before him and turned her until she was lying across his lap, her head cradled by his left arm, her legs across his thighs. Stripping his gloves from his hands, he pocketed them. Gently his fingers brushed at her face, wiping away a trace of ashes, leaving a smudge against her cheek.

His heels touched his horse lightly, and the animal tossed his head and broke into an easy trot.

“You and Tessie are my responsibility, Em. I wasn’t there when you needed me.” It was a statement of failure, and he felt the dark tentacles of self-censure envelope him.

“No, Matt,” she said, more firmly, her blue eyes focused on his face. “I was in charge of Tessie. Don’t blame yourself.”

He smoothed back her hair and bent to kiss her forehead, careful lest he press too firmly against the injury there. “I reckon there are three of us totin’ around a pile of guilt this mornin’. Tessie felt pretty bad when we found her, and by now she knows that you were in a peck of trouble, too. I’ll warrant she’s parked on the porch, waitin’ for us to hit the horizon along about now.”

“How much farther?” Emmaline asked him, her lashes drooping once more as she nestled against his chest.

“An hour or so,” he answered, reining his mount to swing past the eastern side of the creek, having crossed it farther north, where it barely made a stain on the dry ground. Coming from a deep spring, it flowed year-round, but during the summer it soaked up a lot quicker than in the cooler months.

“Want to stop and rest awhile, Emmaline?” he asked, his eyes intent on the rise and fall of her breasts, the even measure of her breathing. She had coughed and choked at first; but once he had her in the air outside the cabin, she’d settled down, only occasionally inhaling deeply, as if she needed a cleansing breath to fill her lungs.

Jackson had done enough gasping and gagging for both of them, he decided. He’d been closer to the source of the fire, surrounded by the heavy smoke before Hailey was able to get to him. It had been a close call, and once more his anger at the man who was responsible rose within him. Futile anger, with no target to vent its fury upon.

Except for the woman who waited at the ranch house. The quiet, ladylike female who had come close to costing him the woman he— His thoughts focused on the word, one that been almost foreign to his vocabulary.

Hell, she’s under my skin, that’s all there is to it,
he decided with a scowl that would have frightened anyone who knew him well.
She came flittin’ around, smart and sassy and ready to argue about everything and anything. What’s more, she sure as hell hasn’t acted like she’s head over heels about me,
he thought, glaring down at her darkly.

Anyway, I wouldn’t know what love felt like if it was starin’ me square in the face. In fact, if I told her I loved her, she’d probably just... Damn it all, it’s hard to say what she’d do.

Love. How the hell do I know what love is supposed to feel like? Just because I like havin’ her in my bed, that doesn’t mean anything.
But it did, and his mouth twisted in an unwilling smile as he admitted the fact to himself.

He tightened his hold on her, caught up in the flood of tender emotion that enveloped him. Well, one thing was for sure, he vowed—she was his and he’d be switched if he let her get out of his sight again.

He watched her for a moment, savoring the feel of her, the softness of her bottom beneath his hand as he lifted her higher against his chest.
Damn, she never looks at me the way she does Tessie,
he thought glumly.
She’s about as prickly as a cactus with me. And damned if she don’t like to fuss at me.

Except in the dark hours of the night. His grin was cocky as he thought for a moment of laying Emmaline down beneath the trees by the stream.

And, as if she sensed his thoughts, she stirred against him, grumbling beneath her breath.

“Matt...you’re squeezing me!” she said plaintively, her eyes flickering open, accusing him even as he laughed aloud at the petulant look she wore.

“Sorry, honey.” He was thankful she could not read the randy thoughts that had prompted him to hold her so tightly. “We’re almost there, Em,” he promised her. “You’ll be in your own bed in just a little while.”

“I want to see Tessie,” she murmured, her eyes closing once more.

“Soon, Em. Soon.”

* * *

The confrontation with Olivia had been brief, her stunned surprise at seeing Emmaline proof enough to condemn her in Matt’s eyes. She’d been conniving for weeks, perhaps longer, he realized. Her placid demeanor had vanished when Hailey Baines took her firmly by the arm and told her she was under arrest. Complicity was the accusation he’d leveled in her direction, and she’d hotly denied it.

“I’ve done nothing wrong!” she’d snarled, and then condemned herself with her arrogance. “You have no proof, anyway,” she’d said with haughty smugness, her eyes on the body of Kane Burton as he lay across the saddle of his cow pony.

“Proof? Not in writing, maybe,” Hailey had drawled. “But the word of this little girl will go a long way in court. You lied to her and sent her out on a horse alone, telling her that her sister would come to fetch her.”

“A child’s word against mine?” Olivia sputtered.

“She shot my mare out from under me,” Emmaline said softly from her seat on the porch, where Matt had deposited her at her own insistence. She’d looked at Olivia with sad eyes, aware that no one had mentioned Fancy in her hearing, and only too conscious of the significance of that lack.

“I was aiming at that ranch hand,” Olivia had blurted.

“You told him to kill me,” Emmaline had reminded her. “And then you said you’d do it yourself.”

“You’re an upstart.” Olivia had flung the words at her. “Matt would’ve married me sooner or later, if you’d gone back where you came from. I know that’s what his mother intended to happen when she brought me here, and he was becoming interested in me. You never belonged here, anyway,” she’d snarled.

Olivia had cursed her then, using vile words that drove the color from Emmaline’s face and caused Matt to pick her up and carry her into the house. Behind them, the small group had dispersed. The sheriff, his deputy and their prisoner had headed for town, Olivia on the seat of the buckboard, Kane’s body secured on the wagon bed. Claude had volunteered to drive her, his eyes alight with satisfaction as he glared his finest in her direction.

Now the quiet of the house surrounded them. Tessie had been tended to, had viewed Emmie’s bruises with tender eyes and kissed them with damp smacks guaranteed to make them better in jig time, she’d said.

The room was dim, the windows draped to keep out the bright light of day, and Emmaline was a small bundle beneath the sheet he’d thrown over her. He’d been careful taking off her clothes, pulling off the leather skirt that had probably saved her from more scrapes, if its condition was anything to go by.

He’d felt his frustration rise to a peak when he washed her. The rope burns on her wrists were proof of her struggle to rid herself of her shackles as the fire burned inside the cabin. Her poor hands had borne the brunt of her fall, showing numerous deep scratches. He washed her face, hearing her sigh of pleasure when the cool cloth bathed her throat and her breasts, removing the scent of the fire and the dust of the trail.

She had rolled to her side, unaware that her only covering was the muslin sheet, too weary to dispute his instructions.

“Were you really getting interested in Olivia, Matt? Before I got here, I mean?”

The snort of denial was spontaneous, and Emmaline smiled as Matt sputtered a reply. “She’s got a mighty big imagination, is all I can figure out.”

“I knew she had eyes for you,” Emmaline whispered.

Matt shook his head. “I want you to sleep, Em. Just close your eyes and try to rest, you hear?”

A sigh of satisfaction escaped her lips as he lay beside her and enclosed her in his embrace. His fingers tangled in a cluster of curls, crushing the vibrant locks within his palm. His other hand had followed the curves of her slender form, roaming at will down her side, as if he sought reassurance that she was whole, safe and secure—here in his bed, where she belonged.

* * *

The weight of his arm was heavy across her ribs, his hand, cradling her breast, was warm and familiar, and Emmaline’s first thought was one of thanksgiving. Not for a moment had she doubted that Matt would rescue her. Even when the fire sent smoke billowing and flames were creeping across the ceiling, she had not doubted his ability to free her from the cabin.

She sighed, relishing the warmth of his body behind her, his chest against her back, and his arms containing her, sheltering her. Suddenly she needed to see him, needed to face him. She turned within his embrace, shifting until she was tucked beneath his shoulder. Then she tilted her head, the better to look into his face.

His eyes were open, scanning her features, as if he wanted to reassure himself about her well-being.

“Hi, Em,” he whispered, his voice raspy with the remnants of sleep.

“Hi.” She stretched and yawned, one hand rising to cover her mouth. Then she relaxed once more against his shoulder, aware suddenly that there was only a thin layer of muslin between her flesh and his gray cotton shirt.

“I don’t have anything on,” she said accusingly.

He grinned. “I know. I’m the one who put you to bed, remember?”

He backed away from her, allowing her head to fall to the pillow, and heard with amusement the small cry of protest she uttered. Standing, he stripped off the denims he wore, sliding his smallclothes with them, then deliberately removed his shirt. Switching the sheet to one side, he crawled in next to her and lifted himself on one elbow to consider the injuries she’d sustained.

“I’m fine,” she protested as she watched the frown gather on his brow, knowing what he sought as his eyes traveled over her face.

He raised the sheet, stifling her protest with one long finger across her lips, and looked his fill, aware of the pinking of her cheeks as she tolerated his perusal. There were bruises on her breasts, along one hip and down the length of her thigh. Probably where she’d fallen from Fancy, he decided. He’d wiped her hands clean, and the scratches were already beginning to heal, scabbing over and looking not nearly so vicious now.

He lifted each hand separately, his mouth paying homage to her fingers and the palms in turn, his kisses warm and damp against her flesh.

“I love your hands, Emmaline,” he said as he trained his eyes on the slender fingers. That had slipped out pretty well, he thought.

“You do?” She sounded amazed, and he grinned at her reaction. “Why ever would you love my hands?”

“They’re part of you, for one thing,” he drawled. “I love your hair, too,” he told her, releasing her hands to run his fingers into the wealth of copper-toned curls that spread out upon her pillow.

“Matt? The last time you said anything about my hair, you only liked it.” His fingers tugged a bit at her teasing, and she squeaked a protest and tried to sit up. But he would have none of it. His weight shifted to hold her where he wanted her. Subsiding with barely a murmur, she pressed her lips together and waited.

“I love all the parts of you, Emmaline Gerrity,” he said finally, his eyes having finally come to rest on her face, wary and hesitant as he gauged her reaction.

She swallowed, and her tongue made a journey from one side of her mouth to the other, tracing its way across her top lip and then back along the plush line of the bottom one.

“All the parts?” she asked breathlessly.

He nodded solemnly. “All of them.” His eyes slid down her body, pausing as they tenderly bathed her breasts with approval, and then continuing until he noted the curling of her toes and the tensing of the muscles of her belly.